FutureComm

Project Overview

User Based Communication Services: User based services are services that support users and their needs in society. In particular a core focus has been placed on services that will help address the healthcare needs of users. A number of case study scenarios have been developed to identify healthcare related services, and these include – hospital environments and services to support medical officers (including services for paramedics), services for elderly patients (in particular patients suffering from alzheimers disease), as well as services that are used to create virtual communities of users. The development of the scenarios is conducted in collaboration between WIT TSSG and UL IDC. Additionally, a cross-disciplinary research topic in the area of Nano-networking is also introduced in the project. In particular, the TSSG has investigated communication protocols for molecular communication. This research theme is to support novel communication techniques for networked micro/nano bio-devices embedded in the human body.

Communication Service Management: While services in the future will be created in abundance, there will be a need to manage these services. This includes managing services within the infrastructure network, as well as in ad hoc network scenarios (this is more towards scenarios of social ad hoc networks), and how services are used to create virtual communities to connect people. At the services layer, the aim is to create an adaptive service middleware (known as CSM – Cognitive Service Middleware) that will manage the functionalities required by the services (e.g. bridge the services to user’s requirements). Functionalities required by the service middleware includes evaluating the user’s profile and other context information and tailoring composed services to meet user’s requirements. The cognitive requirements of the CSM would be to adaptively change the middleware’s functionalities and requirements as services, as well as user’s requirements, changes and to develop adaptive techniques to allow service middleware to interact with other middleware. In the case of adaptive techniques, bio-inspired techniques can be applied.

Network Infrastructure Management: Since services will be very diverse, this will result in more dynamic traffic in the underlying network infrastructure. In particular, techniques will be required for adapting protocols to help support more dynamic and adaptive techniques for resource management. To date, work includes an adaptive routing solution called Parametrised Gradient Based Routing (PGBR) in core network infrastructure, as well as adaptive MAC layer resource management to support applications such as on-line gaming in wireless networks.

Societal and Technological Relationship. The interaction between society and information technology is complicated. FutureComm is interested in the development of models, processes and tools to aid users of communications services, including individuals and different social groupings, to manage aspects of their interaction with each other as mediated by the communications infrastructure. For the project, it is important to develop an approach for capturing and analysing information relating to social interactions between users and user groups. This information can be used to guide the development of communications services that exhibit high levels of usability and promote sustenance and growth of communities.

Project Implementation

The objective is to create an interdisciplinary, as well as trans-disciplinary, research programme in order to maximise research novelty in services and network management. The TSSG sees this as one of the key research requirements in addressing the challenges of Future Internet. By conducting this research, FutureComm will enhance Ireland’s importance in the development of the Future Internet and connect Irish research and Irish based industry to the global research community. The objective is to ensure Ireland’s leadership in the development of the communications infrastructure for the Future Internet and as a result establish Ireland as a location for continued economic investment.

Key Objectives

1. Continue to develop key research capacity in core technical domain of telecommunications management and to build on this core with domain expertise in related fields.

2. Develop new interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary research themes that will improve service and network management research for Future Internet

3. Strengthen Ireland’s academic research through collaborations with leading International partners.

4. Publish research findings in leading international conferences and journals

5. Conduct this research programme through PhD student supervision, and increase the number of PhD graduates as set out by the Irish government

Funding

EU FP7.

Contact

For more information on FutureComm project contact project manager below: